


the young adult

by relationshipcrimes



Series: shuake week 2019 [6]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Child Neglect, Despite all these tags very few bad things happen, Gen, I Wrote This For Shuake Week But There Is Actually No Shuake, I don't know the specifics of the Japanese foster care system so either bear with me or suck it up, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Me looking at my own tags: How did this happen, Mild Gore, Mild Suicide Ideation, No bad shit happens to Akechi, No sex with minors occurs either on- or off-screen, Pedophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-16 08:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21033410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relationshipcrimes/pseuds/relationshipcrimes
Summary: Akechi deals with his Persona awakenings alone.





	the young adult

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Shuake Week 2019, Day 6: Angel/Demon.
> 
> Read the tags, friends.

Robin Hood used to have opinions, and still does, when Goro bothers to listen. Robin Hood used to never be able to shut the hell up with all his instantaneous knee-jerk opinions on what was right and what was wrong and snap-decisions on who to hold accountable for crimes against society. Robin Hood also doesn’t have a mouth. Robin Hood has a set of vocal cords and no tongue. Robin Hood thinks in clear, direct lines, like straight-shot arrows, or beams of light. Conviction that strong doesn’t need words.

Anyway, Goro’s social worker almost hospitalized him as schizophrenic the one time he told her about Robin Hood, so maybe that’s why Robin Hood doesn’t have as many opinions as he used to.

*

The day after Loki awakens, Goro is telling himself to be grateful for the solitude away from the prying eyes of his foster mother while Goro hyperventilates in an ice-cold bathtub with all his clothes still on. The water evaporates right off his hot skin. There’s something on the inside making its home in Goro’s nerves, threading fire in his blood, rearranging the muscles to make room for Loki. There’s too much of him all at once and Goro desperately wants to be alone and for it to be over and for someone to hold him together and tell him he’ll be all right and Loki doesn’t speak a word.

Outside, a police siren screams.

That's for him, isn't it.

Fuck. Alright. 

Either Tamatsuki-san scapegoats Goro for some shitty shoplifting charge, or Goro gets his shit together.

That’s right—that’s fine—he’s got to grow up, he thinks, staring up at the white shower tiles boxing him in. He isn’t a child who needs a superhero anymore, and he can't be a child who solves his problems with a fist in someone's face. The world is being written by men in plain dress shirts with briefcases full of paper that determine the lives of other people. The stupid Featherman cartoon _feels_ like power. The briefcase full of papers is _real_ power. And if you’re going to take power over your own life back, you’ve got to learn to wield the same weapons.

He drags himself upright; he's not going down soaking wet in a bathtub. Ice water drains out of the folds of his T-shirt, and the instant his head is out of the water, the headache and the fever is back. It's the sort of heat that he can feel in his eyes, like a permanent heat-haze across his vision. His limbs are frozen numb and he nearly slips and falls getting out. Wouldn't that be a way to go, dying in the bathtub like his mother, only too stupid to do it on purpose. Get up. Keep moving. He hates nothing else like the idea of not dying on his own terms; if he can't live on his own terms, can't he at least have that? Focus—Tamatsuki-san takes his time, but Goro can't depend on his laziness. Tracking the police siren with his ears, Goro hangs his dripping clothes on the bathroom clothesline and wiggles his way into his school shirt and pants, the only clean clothes he’s got left.

He moves to leave the bathroom to make an ice pack for his head and instead stops dead in front of the mirror. He left his jacket off, so in his school shirt with the white collar, he could be one of those nine-to-five salarymen who write the very rules by which foster children like Goro live, even the rules by which police officers like Tamatsuki-san live. With his hair long from how wet it is, he almost doesn't recognize himself. 

Slowly, Goro lifts his head higher in the mirror. He looks down his nose like the lawyers who stand down his social workers, the businessmen ready to wrench pay from his foster families. He knows what he has to do. He must reinvent himself in the image of the powerful, or he'll die before he has the chance to undo them with their own weapons. He must retool himself to be their very downfall.

In the mirror, Loki watches the steam rise from Goro’s skin. The police siren won't shut up.

“What are you?” fourteen-year-old Goro demands.

Loki isn’t impressed with this question.

“I know you’re me,” says Goro. His expression in the mirror holds firm, just as casually arrogant and in control as any one of those suit-and-tie bastards. Good. He’s making this work. He’ll pry the truth from this creature like the best of the bureaucrats, like his own social worker pries answers from him to put down on her ledger of his life’s worth. “I am thou, thou art I. If we’re to be the same—" if Loki will be the mask Goro wears to survive the next hour, maybe the rest of his life "—I want to know what sort of creature you are.”

Loki smiles widely. Loki, it turns out, has a mouth and no vocal cords and no tongue. Only teeth. Goro knows instantly that this is the wrong question altogether.

“Where did you come from?” Goro says instead, frustrated. “You’re not from any folk tale or history book I know. You’re not Shinto or Buddhist. A myth? A story? From history?”

Wrong question.

“Everyone comes from somewhere! I’ll just research it myself if you won’t answer.”

Loki has no strong feelings about that. Maybe because Loki knows that if Goro researches it, it’ll be conceding that Goro's experiment in strong-arming his own psyche into giving him answers will have failed—and if Goro can’t even do that…

He grits his teeth. His jaw in the mirror flexes. Loki’s skin keeps shifting, and it’s giving Goro a headache on top of all the other aches and pains he's got.

“You’re some minor spirit, then?” he taunts. “Too puny to be noticed by the pantheon?”

Loki has no strong feelings about that either, primarily because it’s not true and they aren't so insecure as to be goaded by it. (Goro’s beginning to feel like there’s been a mistake and there’s no way they are the same. Goro’s never had a tepid feeling in his life.) Loki’s skin crawls, changes shape again.

“Something hideous,” Goro tries again. “Some disgusting evil cast away by better gods. Some fearsome evil that made them fear for their lives."

Wrong question.

“A savior,” says Goro desperately. “Justice on high. An angel serving revenge. Goodness punishing evil—”

Wrong question.

“Yeah? How about _fuck_ y—”

There's a bang on the door. It practically rattles in its frame.

When the door opens, a policeman in his uniform stands casually with his hands loose at his sides, badge on full display. A young man stands in _his_ school uniform, a little rumpled but otherwise clean, with hair still wet from (presumably) a good, responsible shower. His hair is neatly smoothed down and out of his eyes. 

"Everything okay, Goro-kun?" Tamatsuki-san asks, before he even says hello. "I heard some shouting."

Clear and direct: Robin Hood hates this man on sight.

Overwhelming conviction floods his stomach. This is a man who can and will destroy a child's life to get his paycheck. Goro's not stupid. Tamatsuki-san disliked Goro ever since Goro scratched that kid's face during homeroom and Tamatsuki-san had to drive him home; Goro's got no parents; Goro's an easy target to pin the latest neighborhood mugging on. There is no reason whatsoever for Tamatsuki-san to be here on Goro's doorstep if not to find some way for Goro to incriminate himself.

That makes Tamatsuki-san a man who's here to destroy Goro's life, if he'll let him. This is the enemy. He deserves to have his life ruined, his wallet torn apart and fed to the poor, his organs pulled to feed the hungry children. _Give back what you've taken from me_, Goro thinks, almost apropos of nothing. _Give my life back, give my happiness back, give my mother back, give my future back. I'll pull it from your throat with my bare hands._

"No, sir," says Goro. His voice is stiff. 

"I thought I heard voices."

"No, sir. It was the TV."

"Is that so," says Tamatsuki-san, like he has any goddamn right to be judging Goro's TV-watching habits. Tamatsuki-san is _not_ the officer assigned to help Goro's social worker; that's Mori-san, who has the personality equivalent of white bread and a spine just as stiff. Tamatsuki-san informally assigned _himself_ to Goro's case just to fucking ride his ass, to get his jollies by watching Goro sweat, and Tamatsuki-san's still doing it now even while he _should_ be doing his job and finding the person who actually did whatever-the-fuck Tamatsuki-san is _supposed_ to be doing instead of leering at the foster kid on the fourth floor. _Disgusting piece of shit_.

God, like Goro cares about finding whoever did whatever Tamatsuki-san's supposed to be investigating. Tamatsuki-san wants to lock someone up? Like anyone in this neighborhood hasn't broken the law at least once. Take the yakuza guy downstairs in three-oh-four. Take the kids who smuggle drugs at the park down the street. Take Goro's foster mother for all he cares. (Did his foster mother pay the bills yet? Or did Sato-san just take the money from housing a foster child and run?)

"Is Sato-san home?" Tamatsuki-san asks.

Goro folds his hands behind his back and squeezes his fists. He can almost feel the crunch of Tamatsuki-san's nose on his knuckles already. He can almost taste how satisfying it'd be. "No, sir. She's out for today. Would you like me to give her a message?"

"Do you know where she is?"

"She's at work, sir."

Goro has no idea where Sato-san is. Sato-san hasn't been home for almost six days. Maybe Sato-san is dead. (Goro hopes so.) This wouldn't be the first time Goro's been returned to the foster care system within a few months of being placed. 

"Is that so," says Tamatsuki-san again. He's peering over Goro's head, now. _Vulture looking for his prey. The rich are always greedy. The rich never think they make their homes and hearths off your blood and bones_. Goro's having difficulty breathing. "Home alone?"

_I'll tear you apart_. "Yes, sir."

"Not getting into trouble?"

Tamatsuki-san has _no_ business knowing anything about Goro's "trouble." How many times Goro's run away from home was supposed to be confidential. Goro knows his fucking rights, okay, he looked it up himself, he knows Tamatsuki-san couldn't know this without digging for it, this fucking walking, talking bag of mildew. Goro's knuckles pop loudly in the dark. "...No, sir. I haven't been out all day today, sir."

"No?"

"I've been doing homework, sir." _I've been talking to the demons who'll suck the soul from your marrow_. Goro's headache is a spike through the front of his skull. His jaw hurts. His fists hurt. His teeth hurt. His heart hurts.

"We're investigating a report of a mugging at the intersection down the block," says the Tamatsuki-san. "Since we already know each other so well, whatwith your... colorful history... you wouldn't happen to know anything about it, would you?"

Goro thinks this man's head would look best in a guillotine. Goro wants to see his skin melt under the light of justice. "No, sir."

Tamatsuki-san only looks more pleased. "And you've been home alone all day long, without anyone else to account for where you were?"

Goro grits his teeth, feels the urge to yell, to haul off and punch him in the nose, get himself sent to juvie in a blaze of glory. He can't live on his own terms, is that it? Always have to live with _fuckers_ like Tamatsuki-san who get their rocks off to threatening to jail fourteen-year-old boys? Why not go out while he still has a say in it? Why not call it here while he still can? God, it would feel so good to tear through this man's jaw, sink his fist into the soft gut below the ribcage, go for the eyes, dig his nails deep, pull the skin apart, reveal this man's true face, _maggots like you should rot—_

Loki's claws sharp around his shoulders.

_—and demons like you should choke on your own flesh. I'll carve a noose from your own tongue, blindfolded with your own skin, tear your own ribs apart with your fingers. Clog your throat with your own self-love. Gouge your brain from your skull upon your own weapons, your very pride; drown you in your own wine. You'll thank me._

_Let me show you._

And for the first time since they've known each other, Goro stops. Lifts his head. Gives Tamatsuki-san a small, polite smile.

"I went outside once today," he says, and hedges: "I heard a, uh, something unusual just a little while ago..."

"Oh?" If Tamatsuki-san can tell Goro's sudden cooperation is odd, this doesn't seem to dampen his interest. "About an hour ago, would you say?"

"Now that you say so, I think it must have been," says Goro demurely. _Feed the ego. His overblown arrogance was always there; you've just got to draw it out._

Tamatsuki-san seems to like the docility. The absolute fucking creep. _Make him underestimate you. Then make him regret it_. "And would you say that the something unusual was, perhaps, like someone yelling?"

This motherfucker really wants to find someone to pin this on, doesn't he? He's practically feeding Goro the lines. "Yes, sir," says Goro, the picture of fourteen-year-old innocence. He's got a round face. Big eyes. Double eyelids. (His own face is the best portrait of his mother that he owns.) _Use it to your advantage_, Goro thinks._ If he likes your face, use it against him_. "I heard something like yelling, so I went outside to the balcony and leaned out to look where it came from. I saw someone running..."

Now Tamatsuki-san's got a pen and notepad out. "Oh, sir, can this be off the record?" Goro says. "I've been really trying to turn it around ever since we talked last month. I really like Sato-san. I don't want any trouble. I want to stay here."

Tamatsuki-san taps his pen. "Where did you see the person running off to?" he says, and doesn't put the pad away, but he doesn't write anything down, either. Holy _shit_, this guy's corrupt. Almost impressively corrupt. Has this man followed a single line of protocol this entire time? Goro doesn't know much about questioning witnesses, but even he can feel wind from this man speeding through red tape.

_He doesn't have a partner with him. He doesn't want witnesses to his own corruption. Use it against him._

"I hope you'll understand," says Goro, bowing slightly. Appealing to this man's own willingness to bend the rules, appeal to a sense of solidarity in two people willing to duck the law. His head spins slightly even as he bows. He _needs_ to sleep off this Persona awakening, _right_ now. "I could have sworn I saw the person run off towards the park on the other end of the street."

"Lot of no-good kids hang around that park, don't they? This neighborhood has a problem with little criminals like that lurking down that end."

"Yes, sir." _Don't make it too easy for him. Make him work for it._

"Not you, huh?"

_Reel him in._ "No, sir."

"Wouldn't happen to know any names of these no-good kids who hang out at the park?"

"I don't hang around there, sir," says Goro. 

"My, Goro-kun," says Tamatsuki-san. "You've really come around these last few weeks, haven't you?"

_Not too fast, now._ Goro's got his eyes fixed firmly on Tamatsuki-san, like a gauge of his own performance, as Goro lowers his eyelashes, fidgets in place. "I have been trying to take your advice to heart," Goro says, referring to Tamatsuki-san's thirty-minute jeering marathon two weeks ago about how awful kids were now these days and how Goro was disappointing everyone, including his social worker _and_ assigned officer. "I appreciate that you've stuck around to see how I do," by which Goro means Tamatsuki-san's fucking _stalking_, "and all the support that you've given," by which Goro means thinly-veiled allusions to how _easy_ it would be to throw Goro in juvie if Goro didn't shape up according to Tamatsuki-san's standards. "I hope that I won't let you down, sir."

Oh, that was laying it on real thick, but Tamatsuki-san seems to be eating it up. Actually, Tamatsuki-san is looking at him with interest, and then some—which is weird because it looks a little bit like a very _specific_ flavor of interest—something darker, more _hungry_—

—which—(as a theory, Goro's brain remarks casually as his hindbrain kicks into panic)—would align with why Tamatsuki-san won't leave him alone, why Tamatsuki-san looks at him with such intent whenever Goro gives him the time of day, why Tamatsuki-san is so interested in where Sato-san has gone and if Goro is alone, why Tamatsuki-san seems so _pleased _with any show of Goro's docility and false praise—

Goro finally puts it together: Oh, no _fucking_ way, Goro thinks, and instantly his hands clench into fists to slug this _manipulative, predatory piece of shit _in the gut— 

_Don't struggle. Hold still. Relax—_

—I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him _I'll kill him I'll kill him—_

_He'll kill you. He'll drag you straight to jail, where you'll die._

That's fine! Goro wants to scream. That's fine, maybe that's what Goro wants, because maybe that's the one and only choice he's ever felt was his so maybe _fuck the hell off_ and let him have this, let him at least take Tamatsuki-san down with him—

_When you could do so much more? __Don't you think you could go a little higher than this lowlife? For every piece of trash like him, there's a whole system and network of people condoning him. __Think bigger. Think better. You could sink the world into the whirlpool with you if you wanted, tear the world in half, melt the stars from the sky and bring about Ragnarok in your name—but you want to settle _here_?_

Goro's breathing is tight.

_Hold your tongue. Play the longer game. He will destroy you if you fight him, so don't fight. There are other ways to win._

_Weave him a noose with his own crimes. He'll hang with the weight of his own sins._

"Turned over a new leaf?" Tamatsuki-san remarks. He's still got that hunger in his eyes. "At this rate, you might turn out alright after all."

"I'm glad you think so," Goro lies.

"I'm sure that a good kid like you, who stays out of no-good business, must have memorized the right names to stay away from, too," Tamatsuki-san says. 

_He won't want to throw you in jail if he thinks he can fuck you. Give him someone else to scapegoat in the meantime._

Goro shifts from foot to foot. Pretends he's conflicted, needs a little bit more. _Let him do the work. Let him feel like he's smart, like he's in control_.

"Or maybe you don't know your facts as well as you think you do?" Tamatsuki-san says lightly. "It can happen sometimes when people are... unsure about their own stories..."

_Don't hesitate._

"Isayama-san," says Goro, "sometimes hangs out there."

"Hmmm," says Tamatsuki-san. "I haven't heard about him before, and I like to think I know the names of all the problem kids around here."

"It's what I know, sir," says Goro.

"Are you sure?"

"I wouldn't lie to you, sir," says Goro, like a _good boy_, and sees Tamatsuki-san's face grow ever more satisfied. _Hold your tongue. Just a second longer._

"Know where Isayama-san lives?"

"Apartment three-oh-four," says Goro quietly.

"And you're _quite_ sure," says Tamatsuki-san, "that you were not involved in this incident in any way?"

"I'm sure, sir. Thanks to your good influence."

For one horrible, horrible second, Goro's sure this is going to backfire and this human monster is going to invite himself in, call Goro out on all his nice words and flattery and just—force the issue—but Tamatsuki-san steps back and nods. Goro knows he'll be back again some other night, though. Just because Tamatsuki-san is taking his time doesn't mean Goro's safe yet. "I'll be sure to wrap up the case as soon as possible and let you get back to your homework, Goro-kun."

"Thank you, sir."

"Be good, now," says Tamatsuki-san.

"I will, sir."

Then Tamatsuki-san heads off back down the hall, keys jangling, boots heavy. Goro closes the door and sits on Sato-san's couch. His head is spinning. But the fever isn't quite so bad. Like he's gotten some of it out of his system, somehow.

Twenty minutes later, there's the gunshot from downstairs from Isayama's yakuza older brother shooting the dumb fuck in his face.

Goro's head is on fire.

He's got to cool down, then try and sleep through the rewiring of Loki sinking into his soul, all fire, no shape, no words. Unsteadily, he gets that ice pack he meant to nearly fifteen minutes ago. It doesn't help. He goes back to the bathroom, dunks his head under the cold tap water. Covers his head in a towel against the flickering bathroom lights. Even in the dark, he can see black and white stripes moving under his eyelids; when he looks in the mirror again, he sees it across the image of his own face.

For a long moment, Goro studies Loki again, waiting for—for something. He doesn't know. Loki doesn't have vocal cords. Loki has no voice of their own. Loki does not and will not seek to justify themselves to any Christian sense of morality. There is only Goro in the bathroom, alone.

Shivering, chattering, ice water dripping down his dizzy head, Goro reminds himself again to be thankful for the solitude.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter [@r_crimes](https://twitter.com/r_crimes)  
tumblr [@akechicrimes](http://akechicrimes.tumblr.com)


End file.
